Gorilla Expense is thrilled to announce the launch of its new Smart Corporate Card solution.
The smart card is based on PEX’s Card platform solution and is made to function well with ERP systems by integrating effortlessly into the current workflows to meet operational requirements. It is customizable and allows users to set periodic budget restrictions.
The system may also be used to regulate marketing costs like Google and Facebook Ads as well as IT costs like Amazon, AWS, and Azure. The credit card transaction data can be automatically reconciled with the monthly statements when coupled with Gorilla Expense’s Expense Management Software.
With its selection of practical, simple-to-use solutions that do away with the need for time-consuming paperwork and out-of-pocket charges, Gorilla Expense seeks to revolutionize the expense reporting process.
To know more about the features offered by Gorilla Expense, click here.
There is always room for improvement when it comes to anything, and so, you’re probably reading this because you want to improve the current expense management system and processes you have.
So before shopping and procuring an expense management software, you have to look at the specific requirements of your organization. What does the day to day operations look like from an expense standpoint? Is the software going to scale and adapt to your needs? Do you deal with international travel and booking that needs to be addressed? Does your business use corporate credit cards?
Now that you have figured out your unique requirements, you have a better idea of what to look for to make your expense management so much more efficient. Take a look at these expense management software must-haves:
Corporate credit card integration. This avoids corporate credit card expenses from slipping through the cracks, which can cost the company a lot in the long run. The software should be able to automatically import corporate card expenses and provide to the user for reconciliation.
Mobile apps for Real-time tracking. Today’s technology makes it easy to capture receipts with just a click of a smartphone camera. This should be a standard feature of your software, in addition to easy mileage tracking using maps. If there is OCR in the mobile app, that would be a bonus!
Real-time reporting. Time is money, and reports should be easy to create and submit without any delay. The software must be able to organize reports while providing a clear picture of T&E spend, which helps with improved visibility for the organization.
Timely reimbursements. Reimbursements must occur in a timely manner, and automation plays a big part in this. The software should be able to support reimbursements either via payroll or through the ERP/Accounting system. It also helps to have automatic notifications and reminders for employees to submit their receipts to move things along.
Easy Accounting system integration. The software must seamlessly integrate with Microsoft Dynamics ERP so that all the data can be automatically pushed into Dynamics and reconciled. This also avoids manual work, duplications and redundancy, while making the finance team’s lives much more efficient.
Customer support. You should be able to easily implement your system, with solid adoption amongst your employees. If there are any issues, the software vendor must be able to address these promptly and thoroughly.
As you can see, there is not really one perfect solution that it comes down to. The best solution out there is really the one that works best for your company and your needs.
It is also important to understand how the expense management solution can configured to fit your organization. And there is where Gorilla Expense comes in. Gorilla Expense can accommodate various expense management needs, and we specialize in integrating the data into Microsoft Dynamics ERP. We work with various customers across the world and across myriad industries.
If you would like to see a live demo of the solution or have any questions, please contact us at sales@gorillaexpense.com
Gorilla Expense’s philosophy is ‘No More Hassle with Expense Reports & Reimbursements!’
With Gorilla Expense, companies can make the expense reporting process super simple, realize savings through automation and gain 100% visibility into corporate spend.
Gorilla Expense was selected from several companies and sponsored by Microsoft to showcase innovation in T&E expense reporting at the DEMO Conference.
Key Customer Benefits:
Choose between a SaaS (Subscription) model OR On-Premise Licensed-to-Own model
Use our OCR enabled mobile app to automatically extract data from receipts
Submit mileage related expenses accurately through our Google Maps integration
Automatically download AMEX, VISA & MasterCard Corporate Credit Card data
Gain 100% visibility with expenses using our Analytics & Reporting module
Besides our core T&E Expense Reporting product, Gorilla Expense has also recently launched a new Timesheet product for Time & Expense capture as well as a very cool Purchase Card Reconciliation product for Microsoft Dynamics NAV that fit into our overall vision of creating the premier ‘Spend Management Platform’ for companies.
Contact us to learn more, discuss how we can help solve your challenges, and schedule a live demo of our solution.
Gorilla Expense offers a robust and fully automated integration of credit card data into Dynamics NAV. This is available for all versions of NAV. Using our proprietary Gorilla Expense Integration App, the AP Manager can import credit card transactions (or the App can do it 100% automatically), auto-categorize the transactions to specific expense types/cost categories using our mapping algorithm and then send the data to Navision with a click of a button!
Typically the data is sent to the Purchase Journals in NAV (video of integrating expenses to Purchase Journals) so that an invoice is created to pay the credit card company. But we can also send the data to the General Journals (video of integrating expenses to General Journals) as well as Purchase Invoice screen (Visit our main Expense Reporting for Dynamics NAV page for more details). Any relevant information supplied by the credit card company in the data file can also be referenced in the ‘Description’ field within the Journals or Purchase Invoice Lines in NAV.
The advantages that the Gorilla Integration App offers are:
* Send credit card data to NAV through automation
* Complete visibility of credit card expenses in NAV
* Prevent duplicate expenses in NAV
* Improve the reconciliation process through reporting and analytics within Gorilla Expense
* Eliminate time consuming manual work of keying in data
Gorilla Expense supports integration with all the major credit card companies – AMEX, VISA and MasterCard and their various file formats. The flavors of credit cards that we support range from the standard Corporate Credit Card for T&E Expenses to Purchase Cards or P-Cards for making purchases on behalf of the employer.
Here is how the process works:
Step 1> The AP Manager opens the Gorilla Integration App and logs in as the Admin. Here we have selected NAV as the system to send the data to. The Integration App is typically accessed by the Admin user (belongs to Accounting/AP/IT etc.) in a company.
Logging into Integration App as Admin
Step 2> Once logged in we want to select and import the credit card file supplied by the card provider that is typically downloaded by the Admin on a weekly or monthly basis. In this example, we are using a file supplied by our AMEX corporate card on a monthly basis. The following screenshot shows how the Admin can select the respective card and its format.
Selecting the card and format
**Note: Depending on how the credit card program is setup and services offered by the card provider, Step 2 can be fully automated with no human intervention. In that case, the Gorilla Integration App will automatically ‘pick up’ and import the latest file supplied by the card provider from an FTP site. AMEX typically enables this offering by default for all their corporate card and P-card programs and Gorilla Expense supports this approach**
In the screenshot below, the admin has selected the AMEX file – ‘Transactions.csv’ for import. The file was downloaded from our online AMEX account.
Selecting the file downloaded from the AMEX website
Step 3> Once the file is selected, the Integration App automatically associates the expense type and vendor using our mapping algorithm as shown in the screenshot below. This makes the transactions complete and no manual work is need to categorize the transactions.
Auto-allocation of expense type and vendor
Step 4> The Admin can now select all transactions or select specific transactions to import into the system and send to NAV. The screenshot below shows that two transactions were selected to send to NAV. Out of the two, only the one shaded in Green was sent. The transaction shaded in Yellow was already submitted earlier and is highlighted as a duplicate transaction.
The Gorilla Integration App prevents duplicate transactions from being sent to NAV by using the ‘Unique Identifier’ number supplied by the credit card as part of their file. This a is a powerful feature that saves AP Managers lots of time in checking for duplicates and also makes the reconciliation process easier.
Import transactions and prevent duplicates
Step 5> Once all the transactions are imported into the Gorilla application, they are dragged and dropped into a batch and send to NAV through automation using the same Integration App. The transactions show up as invoices within a batch called ‘GORILLA’. Depending on the payment method defined in the Gorilla application, the invoices are created to pay the employee or the corporate credit card.
In this example, our AMEX card has the payment method defined as AMEX which is tied to the ‘American Express’ Vendor ID defined in NAV. Here is a screenshot that show the expense data in Purchase Journals in NAV.
Expenses in Purchase Journals
All the details from the credit card transaction, namely the vendor and the report number are also made available to provide additional visibility for the CFO / accounting manager and to make it easier to search for expense data in NAV.
This explains how credit card data can be integrated into NAV using the Gorilla Expense Integration App. The App is very flexible in allowing credit card data from multiple cards and various formats to be imported into the system. If you would like to see a live demo of the App or have any additional questions, please contact us at info@gorillaexpense.com
Gorilla Expense offers a robust and fully automated integration of credit card data into Dynamics GP. This is available for all versions of GP (GP10 and above). Using our proprietary Gorilla Expense Integration App, the AP Manager can import credit card transactions (or the App can do it automatically), auto-categorize the transactions to specific expense types/cost categories using our mapping algorithm and then send the data to GP with a click of a button. Any relevant information supplied by the credit card company in the data file can also be referenced in the ‘Memo’ field in GP, within Payables > Distributions.
The advantages that the Gorilla Integration App offers are:
* Send credit card data to GP through automation
* Complete visibility of credit card expenses in GP
* Prevent duplicate expenses in GP
* Improve the reconciliation process through reporting and analytics within Gorilla Expense
* Eliminate time consuming manual work of keying in data
Gorilla Expense supports integration with all the major credit card companies – AMEX, VISA and MasterCard and their various file formats. The flavors of credit cards that we support range from the standard Corporate Credit Card for T&E Expenses to Purchase Cards or P-Cards for making purchases on behalf of the employer.
Here is how the process works:
Step 1> The AP Manager opens the Gorilla Integration App and logs in as the Admin. Here we have selected GP2013 as the system to send the data to. The Integration App is typically accessed by the Admin user (belongs to Accounting/AP/IT etc.) in a company.
Logging into Integration App as Admin
Step 2> Once logged in we want to select and import the credit card file supplied by the card provider that is typically downloaded by the Admin on a weekly or monthly basis. In this example, we are using a file supplied by our AMEX corporate card on a monthly basis. The following screenshot shows how the Admin can select the respective card and its format.
Selecting the card and format
**Note: Depending on how the credit card program is setup and services offered by the card provider, Step 2 can be fully automated with no human intervention. In that case, the Gorilla Integration App will automatically ‘pick up’ and import the latest file supplied by the card provider from an FTP site. AMEX typically enables this offering by default for all their corporate card and P-card programs and Gorilla Expense supports this approach**
In the screenshot below, the admin has selected the AMEX file – ‘Transactions.csv’ for import. The file was downloaded from our online AMEX account.
Selecting the file downloaded from the AMEX website
Step 3> Once the file is selected, the Integration App automatically associates the expense type and vendor using our mapping algorithm as shown in the screenshot below. This makes the transactions complete and no manual work is need to categorize the transactions.
Auto-allocation of expense type and vendor
Step 4> The Admin can now select all transactions or select specific transactions to import into the system and send to GP. The screenshot below shows that two transactions were selected to send to GP. Out of the two, only the one shaded in Green was sent. The transaction shaded in Yellow was already submitted earlier and is highlighted as a duplicate transaction. The Gorilla Integration App prevents duplicate transactions from being sent to GP by using the ‘Unique Identifier’ number supplied by the credit card as part of their file. This a is a powerful feature that saves AP Managers lots of time in checking for duplicates and also makes the reconciliation process easier.
Import transactions and prevent duplicates
Step 5> Once all the transactions are imported into the Gorilla application, they are dragged and dropped into a batch and send to GP through automation using the same Integration App. The transactions show up as invoices within a batch called ‘GORILLA’. Depending on the payment method defined in the Gorilla application, the invoices are created to pay the employee or the corporate credit card.
In this example, our AMEX card has the payment method defined as AMEX which is tied to the ‘AMEX’ Vendor ID defined in GP. Here are a couple of screenshots that show the expense data in GP > Payables.
Invoice in Payables
When Distributions is opened, the details from the transactions, namely the vendor and the report number are also made available to provide additional visibility for the CFO / accounting manager and to make it easier to search for expense data in GP.
Distributions in GP
This explains how credit card data can be integrated into GP using the Gorilla Expense Integration App. The App is very flexible in allowing credit card data from multiple cards and various formats to be imported into the system. If you would like to see a live demo of the App or have any additional questions, please contact us at info@gorillaexpense.com
The GBTA did a survey of more than 200 travel managers in the US on which expense types they mandate the usage of corporate card
No surprises that Airfare was the top at 67%. This is mainly to better manage the spend related to airfare and utilize programs and partnership with air travel vendors. Plus, in some cases, if tickets are canceled or modified, corporate cards have discounted change-fees for being part of the air travel vendor program. Closely following the Airfare expense type are Lodging and Rentals both of which maintain a similar philosophy.
Charging meals to the corporate card provides greater visibility from a compliance perspective. This is especially true if meals are related to Entertainment type expenses. Companies are also increasingly asking employees to charge misc. business expenses like internet, phone calls, faxes etc. to the corporate card to prevent potential frauds. For sales people on the road all the time, the corporate card is a big convenience for mileage and gas related expenses as well.
So, how do your company stack up compared to this? Which expense types do you mandate your users to use the corporate card for? Let us know in the comments below.
Reference: GBTA April 2014 survey. Chart provided by Travel Procurement, part of BTN Newsletter
When you think of expense reports, you also think about its vulnerability to fraud. While there are tools and systems to better tackle fraud, consistent auditing still plays a vital role.
Last year, the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) reported that nearly 15% of all fraud in the workplace was related to T&E expense reporting. According to the same report, the median financial loss to an organization for a single instance of expense fraud is $26,000, and the median duration of the fraudulent activity is two years. That is a lot of money and a long duration.
Earlier this year, AirPlus International fielded a survey to corporate travel managers to explore how they manage expense fraud in the travel category. 35% of the respondents reported that they manage both travel and T&E within their organizations. Another 15% of the respondents identified their official role as a travel manager but were closely involved in creating T&E expense policy as it relates to travel. On the other side, only 30% of travel managers said their company’s travel policy had any guidelines for T&E expenses. 7% of the respondents said they were not involved at all with T&E expenses.
Of the 119 surveyed, 8% of the respondents reported that their companies had uncovered significant fraud in T&E expense reporting over the last two years while 19% said that they didn’t know of any significant fraud. For the 8% of respondents, the most common behavior was falsifying or altering receipts to inflate reimbursements. Additional common fraudulent behaviors include submitting too many “below-the-line” expenses (expenses below a certain $ value that do not require receipts per a corporation’s T&E policy), exchanging premium-class tickets and reclaiming receipts.
The survey respondents utilized safeguards in place at their organizations for preventing and detecting fraud. The most common prevention tactic, cited by 81% of the respondents, was to include direct manager approval for all T&E expenses. 67% of respondents said their companies required receipts for all expenses incurred during travel, while 59% required the use of a corporate card for T&E expenses.
To read the full report by AirPlus International click here
Maintaining compliance and increasing visibility are the key factors in prevention of T&E fraud. Surprisingly, the ACFE reports that most workplace fraud is initially discovered from a tip provided by a co-worker. However, to take action, the tip must be backed up by facts and data.
Here is a video on T&E expense fraud which you may find useful –
Contact us for more information or if you have any specific questions we can help with at info@gorillaexpense.com
Our expense reporting customers love our credit card integration module and find it to be a huge time-saver and hassle-minimizer for their users. The main purpose of this post is to quickly explain how the credit card integration works with our system. So here goes….
Two Words – Very Easy!
In our application, users can automatically download transactions from their corporate and personal credit cards with the click of a button. This uses the standard OFX format, supported by most banks and credit card companies. As a 1st step, the user must setup the credit card profile in the system. Each user can setup multiple profiles and they can be a mix of corporate and personal cards. Each credit card profile can be allocated to different pay methods, as defined by the Accounting person in the company. Once this is done, the user can toggle between the various cards from a list and select one, as shown here
Expense-Report-Credit-Card-Integration
After a card is selected, the user would enter the login credentials as they would if they were logging into their online account, pick a start and end date and Voila! – all the transactions within that date range are imported into the transactions bucket of the application and ready to be pulled into a report, as shown below. This process can be automated a 100%
Expense-Report-Credit-Card-Integration
Allocating Transactions
Once this is done, the user can then assign these transactions to different expense types or GL codes. All information supplied by the credit card merchant is available within the transaction, including the meta-data. So each transaction will include the date, amount, vendor, city and additional fields depending on what is supplied by the bank/CC company. The user can also choose to break down transactions in more detail if needed. For example, a hotel transaction imported from a credit card will typically show the total amount. But the user can break it down into Room rate, Tax, Room Service and Laundry by using the sub-amount fields within the application. Remember, ‘More visibility = More Compliance’
Reconciliation of Credit Card Data
Once all the credit card data is available in the system, reconciliation, which normally takes hours or even days becomes very quick & simple too. Within the Gorilla Expense system, the accounting / AP person can quickly run a report by a pay method and filter by specific employees as well. This report can be exported in multiple formats (PDF, Word, Excel) and compared to the credit card data supplied by the bank for a quick analysis. This will quickly tell if the transactions are valid or if any transactions have been missed by the employee. Since reports can be created for specific date ranges, there is no need to wait till month end (when there are typically 15 other bigger issues to take care of!) to do this. The Accounting person can reconcile every day, week or 2 weeks to make it easier to manage.
Other Credit Card File Formats
Besides the standard OFX format discussed above, we support numerous other corporate card file formats as well. A few examples of key formats are – GL1025 from American Express, CDF3 from MasterCard, VCF from VISA, among many others.
The operating mechanism for these is slightly different from the one described above. These files supplied by the credit card merchant typically include credit card data for ALL users within the company. So unlike the mechanism above where users can import transactions themselves, here the Accounting person (or Admin) will use our proprietary utility called ‘Gorilla Integration Manager’ (GIM) to import the data into the system. Once the merchant’s daily credit card feed for the company is available and imported into GIM, it will automatically correlate specific transactions to specific users and push them to the respective user accounts. So the Admin can, for example, push 5000 transactions to the various user accounts in the system with the click of a button!! From there on, the user has to simply pull these transactions into a report and submit!
Hope you find this information to be useful. Contact us for more information or any specific questions we can help with at info@gorillaexpense.com.
Over the last few months, we have been interfacing with several companies that use Microsoft Dynamics GP. The inevitable question that we hear during the requirements phase is related to importing transactions from the corporate credit card. How does it work? Basically, a corporate card is provided to each employee and they are expected to enter/import expenses on the card within the reporting system. Once the expense report is approved, the data is pushed to GP. After this, the accounting department then does the reconciliation between the employee-submitted corporate card expenses and the card statement. If everything is correct, this should balance out. That’s the gist of it.
As we know, GP has an Expense Management add-on called eExpense. This provides online expense reporting and helps companies automate their expense submission process. But eExpense does not provide an interface for managing and tagging corporate credit card expenses. That’s where we come in!
Within the Gorilla Expense application, users can import transactions from their corporate card and even their personal cards. For this discussion, we will stick to the corporate card only. After the transactions are imported, our application allows the users to tag them with specifics – such as expense type, codes, projects, cost centers or account numbers. These fields are setup in the Gorilla application based on how it is setup in GP. The user can also split each card transaction into multiple cost centers. Once the compiling and tagging is done, the report is then available to the manager and finally the accounting folks to approve.
Once the approval is complete, the final ‘gatekeeper’ sends the transactions to GP using the Gorilla Integration Manager (GIM). The GIM is a very versatile & flexible tool that allows the gatekeeper to map specific parameters and fields to codes and accounts within GP. So, with the push of a button, all the transactions are available within GP and they have been tagged appropriately and immediately.
Our application combined with the GIM takes the pain out of importing and processing corporate credit card transactions. It is a “cannot live without” (actual customer quote) tool for accounting folks that cuts-down the processing time, effort involved and importantly data entry errors. So there you have it. A quick synopsis of the Gorilla Expense – Great Plains symbiosis!
If you have any questions or need assistance in implementing or customizing our application with GP, send us a message at info@gorillaexpense.com or 877.973.6737.
Gorilla Expense has released its credit card import module. With this, users will be able to import credit card transactions directly into the expense report. The module incorporates all major credit cards as well as several banks including checking and savings.
For users, this will reduce the time spent in creating reports and minimize errors. For the stakeholders, there will be more visibility into spend, greater compliance and easier reconciling of submitted expenses with CC statements.
